1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to presence systems. In presence systems, when a presence of a presence owner (henceforth referred to as a presentity) is renewed, this fact is notified in real time to a presence notification requester (henceforth referred to as a watcher).
In the present invention, “presence” refers to any information that the presentity may hold. For example, text messages, image data such as icons, audio data, numerical values, positional information or communication addresses that express the state of the presentity may be considered to be included in a presence. Furthermore, the presentity can be any entity that is capable of having a presence, such as a person or object, enterprise, organization or service.
2. Background Information
In a presence system, a single presentity is capable of possessing a plurality of presences. Furthermore, the presentity is capable of controlling which of the presences that the presentity possesses is notified to the watcher. The presentity is capable of freely determining the application of the presences that the presentity possesses.
Usually, a user who renews a presence is the owner of that presence. However, it has also been proposed that the owner of the presence bestows the right of renewal onto another presentity, and that the other presentity, who is not the owner of the presence, renews the presence. Assume, for example, that an owner of a presence A bestows the right of renewal of the presence onto a renewer B. It may occur, however, that the presentity A holds a plurality of presences. In this situation, the presentity assigns a unique ID to each presence. By designating the ID of the presence for which the right of renewal has been bestowed, the renewer B designates the presence to be renewed and performs the renewal.
Furthermore, technology that associates presences of a plurality of presentities has been described in JP 2003-296525A. More specifically, the association is set in advance, with one of two presentities set as a transfer origin, and the other as a transfer destination. When the presence of the transfer origin is renewed, then this fact is transmitted to the transfer destination, and the presence of the transfer destination is automatically updated to the same content. After this, at the transfer destination, a renewal notification is sent to the watcher of the presentity of the transfer destination.
On the other hand, RFID/IC cards have been the subject of much interest in recent years. The data written on these cards is capable of being automatically detected simply by the card passing through a gate provided with a card reader, and thus applications are expected in various fields such as distribution of goods, for example. When this RFID/IC card technology is applied to presence systems, the following becomes possible. For example, when a user who holds an IC card enters a meeting room A and passes the IC card through the card reader at the entrance, the presence that expresses that card holder's position is automatically changed to “meeting room A”. More specifically, it is sufficient that the IC card records the card holder's ID, that the card reader reads in that information, and that the presence information of the card holder is renewed.
It is common that a presentity that possesses a plurality of presences does not wish that the entire structure of the presences that they possess to be disclosed to another party. On the other hand, the presentity that possesses a plurality of presences may feel that it is troublesome to update the presences one by one by themselves. Consequently, such a presentity will wish to automatically update his own presences without disclosing the entire structure of their presences.
On the other hand, in order to update the presences of the presentity, a renewer that renews the presences of the presentity must investigate the structure of the presences that the presentity possesses. For example, the renewer must get the presentity to inform it of the ID of the presence that the renewer is permitted to renew, and the alternatives of the content that can be set as the presence. If the presence that is to be renewed is dependent on the presence of another presentity, the renewer must also acquire that presence.
If the renewer is a card reader that reads RFID cards, RFID tags or IC cards, then it is not realistic if that the card reader designates which of the plurality of presences that the presentity possesses is to be renewed. This is because there is an unspecified multitude of owners of cards that the card reader reads in, and thus it is difficult for the card reader to judge presences of owners when they are disconnected from the card reader. Of course, the IDs of the presences that the card reader can renew can be fixed. However, this is not particularly favorable as it will lead to an infringement of the privacy of the owners of the presence.
That is, from the point of view of the presentity, there is a need to be able to easily renew a plurality of presences without great time and effort. On the other hand, from the point of view of the renewer, it is a burden to renew the presence while considering the privacy of the presentity. But then again, there is a problem of invasion of privacy of the presentity if the renewer freely renews the presences of the presentity.
Moreover, JP 2003-296525A does not consider the situation in which the presentity has a plurality of presences. Thus, if the presentity has a plurality of presences, then the presence system cannot determine which of the presences to transfer from the transfer origin to the transfer destination. Furthermore, there is also no means to determine which presence of the transfer destination to renew. On top of this, the presence that is transferred from the transfer origin to the transfer destination becomes a presence of the transfer destination. Thus, there is a problem in that the transfer origin may disclose a presence, originally owned by the transfer origin, to an unintentional watcher.
Furthermore, when another user (subscriber) requests permission to view a presence (subscription) of the user that has a plurality of presences (subscribee), the following problem occurs. Even within this, when the subscriber cannot make a subscription demand without knowing the structure of the presence of the subscribee, the burden on the subscriber increases. For example, the subscriber must investigate in advance which presence, from among the presences associated with the subscribee, is the information that the subscriber wishes to know. Furthermore, if the disclosure conditions of the presence are set, then the investigation of which presences are disclosed, and the selection of the presences from among these, is the responsibility of the subscriber. On the other hand, the subscribee may be concerned that disclosing the presence structure, including the content and the disclosure conditions set on his own presence may be a privacy or security problem.
It is an object of the present invention to reduce the burden on a presentity for renewing a presence of a presentity that has a plurality of presences, and also reduce the burden when a watcher views a presence of the presentity.
Furthermore, it is another object of the present invention to both protect the privacy of the presentity and reduce the burden on the renewer when, for example, a third party renews a presence of the presentity that has a plurality of presences.